


Waves Against a Shore

by Shorknado



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 20:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19258600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shorknado/pseuds/Shorknado
Summary: Jake notices someone in the Fog is missing, someone he doesn't think he can survive without.





	Waves Against a Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Koi no disco queen is the best song in the yakuza ost while i love 24 hour cinderalla is incredib majima just cannot fucking sing. Although get to the top? Heartfelt, soulful. Incredible. 
> 
> Anyway dwake.

He hated how long it took him to notice Dwight was missing. Not just at a trial or in the blood web or wondering the Fog aimlessly. Gone. Absent. Completely. 

It was probably when a new survivor dropped in, and developed that sixth sense Dwight seemed to have for finding others without even seeing him once. Usually to get that feel for things you had to talk to someone, get a feel for how they work. But this guy just new. And then he had asked around a bit, hey guys have you seen our buddy in eternal hell Dwight recently? Been in a trial with the guy? Maybe died next to him on a hook recently? 

No, no one had seen him. And very few people were actually concerned about that. Which Jake couldn't really judge, the only reason he cared was because he liked the guy a lot more than anyone else. Seeimg someone else take on the hard role of being the coordinator to their mindless games of hide and go die was something of a comfort. Not to mention Dwight also enjoyed laying in dead silence for indescribable hours on end between trials with him. 

He hears grass crunch, and opens his eyes to see Claudette sit down next to him. She looks down at him with a almost pitying gaze. He's used to it. 

"I've been looking for him too, seems like no ones seen him in a while. Ash barely remembered him..." Claudette says gently, always the best at delivering bad news. Jake nods sadly, and turns his eyes to the grey swirling clouds. 

"Thanks." He offers up. 

"Jake do you remember when you first got here?"

He shrugs, "Vaugly. I went to get firewood and saw something in the woods. I went to check it out and stumbled into a clearing with you two. Why?"

He hears Claudette shift, moving to lay down beside him. Keeping a polite distance. 

"That's the thing thats been on my mind. When I came here Dwight was already in here. He told me a bit about the trials before my first one with you and Meg."

Jake nods, waiting for Claudette to continue for a minute. When it becomes clear shes not going to speak he thinks on what ahe said. Yeah, when he dropped in Dwight was there with general advice on what to do. Listen carefully, avoid crows, when you're heart starts racing get the fuck out. That sort of thing. He didn't really listen of course, this whole thing seemed like a dream all the way up until metal sunk into his shoulder blade and he hung like a pig in agony. He did remember Dwight being there to calm him and Meg down after the trial, where they had directed their anger at him for not being better. Which was incredibly shitty of them at the time considering they at least got a heads up and he...

"He was...in trials before us?" Jake asks, somehow not surprised to realize that but also unsettled by the information. 

"I think so. He never mentioned how long he was here before us. I get the feeling it wasn't too long, but still..." Claudette trails off and silence settle between them. 

Silence, and numbness. The feeling was coming to him more and more each passing indescribable period of time. It was like his body didn't exist, an extream form of sensory deprivation where he would just...be. But without cause or purpose. It was starting to get to him in trials too. A tide of mailse pounding against the shores of his mind, but he was out of sand. Just endless waves and waves and waves and waves and waves-

"Jake?"

He looks over, "Yeah?"

"I think he's gone." 

He stares at Claudette, he sees right through her and into the fog. He sees the swirling mist and the grasping carapace of the thing keeping them here glowing red and orange and he sees the stars. Or what looks like the stars, what he wishes were the stars, shining back at him. 

"Why?" Is all that comes out of Jake. 

"I don't know why. But...I'm afraid you will soon. And so will I. You have the same look in your eyes as him."

He wonders if the face staring at Claudette looked as haunted as hers did. If she was looking right through his the same way he stared through her. The same way Dwight stared through him. The same way the Fog stared through them. 

"I don't want him to be gone yet." 

Claudette nods, and sits up. He watches the back of her head for a few seconds, or hours, until she stands. 

"I think you'll be gone soon too." There's no anger in her voice, just the statment of a fact. It sparks comfort in him. 

"I don't want to go yet." 

Claudette walks away, and the Fog surrounds him like an unkind blanket. He closes his eyes and thinks back to the life he had outside of this wasteland. Feeling the claws of the fog poke and prod at his memories. He let's it do that as images of his childhood flash by in comical slow motion. His brother studying away, his dad working away, his mom toiling away. Him alone. Him learning how to ride a bike. Him almost drowning in that lake that one time. His first kiss, his first allegic reaction to poison ivy, his first school dance. They play through his mind and yet absolutely nothing stirs within him. No fire, no hope, no longing, no pain. Nothing. 

The Fog pries into more recent times. The countless trials, dauntless tasks. Knifes, bones, claws, saws sinking into his skin. His brain boiling in his skull or his jaw ripping from his skull. Enough pain and suffering to match the seven circles of hell hundreds of times over. Phantom pains run through his body, psychosomatic responses to the memories he's enduring. But other than that? Just waves. 

Jake decides to think of something. He pulls his mind away from the Fogs grasp and directs it to a still familar face. Hard to forget someone you've seen experience the gamut of emotions. He thinks of Dwight, the plain looking middle aged life crisis of a man that had saved him more times than he could count, and abondan him for dead just as often. Even if death was a temporary placebo in this purgatory. No matter what happens in the trials, Dwight had been there. He stood resolute against the waves, unbroken despite his frail form. He never talked about escape, just survival. Just about us against them. How they could survive, how they would survive. How no matter how many times you die there would always, always be that ome escape that kept you going. That hatch just when you're at the end of the line. Luck and fate combining to let you spend your last burst of energy or last breath fighting to the bitter fucking end to get out of that cage. No matter how many times someone left you on the hook or at the gate it doesn't matter because what counts are the times they do save you. The times you are helped, you are given the last few seconds you need because someone has to die and its not going to be you again. 

Dwight had a way of sparking the fire in him. That will to move, to fight, to bite back against the claw that held them there. Even if it was just by living. Those thoughts, those memories are what stir something in him. Fleeting, just for a moment Jake feels a warmth in his heart and he smiles. The feeling flickers, and dies in his chest mere breaths later. Despite all the memories of Dwight he has, the man is gone now. 

He can't even feel sad about it. 

The Fog grows warm and he lets himself be cast away.

\---

Rot flows with the breeze, and he looks up to see the pig tree. At least thats what he calls it. A glance around reveals a generator standing silent near the conviently placed walls that littler the fields. Jake stands, listening to the crows crowd around him and screams on tne wind. He should feel fear. 

Slowly, he takes a step forward. Walking into the corn aimlessly. He passes a totem and a few lost souls on a generator. There's an open spot, but he feels no drive to sit down and move wires. They're not even real generator, he just tightens and untightens bolts until the thing pops in his face or the lights turn off. This isn't real.

Jake walks out of the corn, running a hand over a hay bale. He can't feel it through his glove, but it's not real. He knows this to be true. Something snaps around his leg. Pain courses through his body, a reaction to stimulous. He looks at the familiar rusted metal, and takes another step. The trap clangs loudly, and his body heats up uncomfortably as the being keeping them here tells him to stop walking and get the trap off. He takes another step, and his body grows heavy and his limbs tingle the way they always do when he does something the being doesn't want them to do. He leans against the wall of the house perpetually rotting to pieces and takes another labored step. 

That's when his heart starts to race, but not out of any real fear. It just beats and beats against his chest because the Fog tells it to. It beats because the killer is coming, and he should take the trap off and run not just stand there. He understands this of course, he's done it hundreds of times. He was the best at it. But why should he? Why should he not just stand where he appears and let whatever creature out to kill him do it so he can lay at the campfire and stare into the void? Meeting its cruel amber flames with his indifference?

The hulking shape of the Trapper rounds the corner and looks down at him. Tilting its mask curiously as Jake takes a heavy step towards him, trap banging against the house. Do these creature's abide by the same rules? Do they feel the same numbness or simple creations of the Fog to torment them. Does he care? Can he care?

The creature sinks its blade into him, and Jake realizes that there's no meaming to this cruelty. If the monster carrying him derives any joy from hurting him, its mindless. All of it is mindless. The hook bites his shoulder, and he closes his eyes as the hot carapace digs into his abdomen. 

Its all mindless waves crashing against and landless shore. 

 

\---

Jake opens his eyes, and he's standing in the woods. Somethings different though, a detectible difference in the air perhapse? A breeze thats just right? He turns around, finding a almost imperceptible path weaving through the trees. Its dark, not impossibly dark just dim. A few spots of light drift in through the trees. Its all so...natural. He tugs a glove off and runs a hand down a tree. It feels...organic? Uncertanly he walks down the path way, memories coming back to him. This was the path near his cabin. It lead to a patch of...strawberries? Blueberries? He couldn't remember, and it didn't matter. 

He pushes aside a branch and stares at his house. A little more worse for wear than he remembered it being, but it was his cabin. The one he bought just to be far away from civilization. To live off the grid and away from his dad until he was taken. Nothing really lights up in him at the sight however. He just...understands that it's his and he owns it. A light turns on inside as Jake approaches. He steps on the back porch steps and wonders if he should knock. Had soneone new moved in? How long had he been gone? Was he free? 

The door opens, and Jake stares up at a familar face light by his vintage gas lantern. He finally understands whats happening. He's not home, he was never free. This was his brains final hurra before it dispelled itself into the fog and vanished into the void of real death forever. Only he would create a fantasy so boring and mundane like this one.

"Jake." 

He takes a step towards Dwight, reaching out with a shaking hand and resting it on the mans chest. He can feel the steady pulse of his heart through that awful blue shirt he hated so much. 

"Is this real?" Jake says, staring at the rise and fall of Dwight's chest before looking up into his eyes. They were dull, almost lifeless if not for a tiny shine. 

"I'm afraid so." Dwight says, setting the lanter down and pulling Jake forward into a hug. Dwight presses him into his chest, and he can hear Dwight sobbing into his scarf. 

Jake tries to pull up anything, any scrap of feeling left in his body to display, but nothing rises to the surface. He lets Dwight dig his nails into his shoulders a scream in utter sorrow and agony as stares at the darkness between the trees. Something has to be left. Anything. 

Dwight pulls away and wipes his eyes, taking a few shuddering breaths as he collects himself into the relatively confident and entirely uncool leader Jake knows and loves. 

"S-sorry I...well I have a lot to explain. And well its been a lot. Here come in, I mean uh- its your home but like can I come in?" Dwight says in an awkward spiel. Jake nods, picking up his lantern and going into his old house. 

It was dusty, but surprisingly not dilapidated. Like a vacation house someone had cared for but didn't use as often as they would like. He notices a suitcase by the couch, probably Dwight's, and goes to sit. Dwight follows, taking a seat next to him and pulling his feet up.

"So uh, Happy return to reality day! How are you feeling?"

Jake blinks at Dwight, and shrugs, "Not...really?"

Dwight nods, reaching over to pat his shoulder, "Yeah, same here. It gets a better after a bit but..." Dwight shrugs, and Jake understands what he's getting at. 

"How long has it been?" Jake asks. Dwight shifts uncomfortably.

"Since I got out or...in general?"

"Both."

Dwight lets out a sigh and rubs his arm nervously, "We, both you, Claudette, Meg and me, have been missing for three years. It's been about...two months since I appeared back home and uh...well."

Jake stares at Dwight, trying to process the bombshell he had just dropped. Three years? In the Fog? And Dwight had been gone for two months before he noticed? If he wasn't so numb no doubt he would be freaking out. 

"We have to get you to the cops soon, doing this stuff is way easier when you first get out trust me. But yeah we've been gone for a while. I used what you told me in the Fog to uh...track your house down? I figured that after I left you or Claudette would be next, so I took a gamble and came to your place."

Jake nods, he guesses that all made sense in a weird way. He wasn't looking forward to telling the cops how he turned up unharmed three years after disappearing. 

"Why me?"

Dwight shrugs, "You...were about as bad off as me last I saw you in the Fog. I think the...thing that had us trapped feed of us? Like our emotions and such, abd once we were out of emotions to give it the thing just...spit us out here."

 

That made a hell of a lot of sense to him. Dwight stares at him expectantly, and Jake stares back. He wants to say something, to be happy to see Dwight but...

"Hey its ok! I know how you're feeling, or uh not feeling? Don't worry about it."

Jake forces a smile, and crawls into Dwight's lap. An impressive feat considering he was a good three inches taller than him. He tucks his head under Dwight's chin and breaths in the smell of his clean skin. God he was clean. No dirt under his nails and rubbing against his skin. He relaxes as Dwight wraps his arms around him and squeezes. This was it, this was what he wanted. 

"Stay here, for a little bit. I want to feel again with you here." Jake says softly, closing his eyes and listening to the sound of crickets and owls. 

"Of course Jake. I'll stay here as long as you need."

**Author's Note:**

> I hate reading fics that take place in the entitys realm so thanks for reading


End file.
